“We do not wish to grant the communist party any moral sanction for their views, and thus find no reason to debate with members of the People’s Soviet Communist Party in Second Life, specially when it comes to discussing a dead issue.” – Kain Scalia, founder Objectivist Institute in Second Life

When a press release for the Objectivist Institute in Second Life arrived in the newsroom last week, the Herald editorial staff felt slightly giddy. Could SL finally be living up to its real potential – a world where humans and furries engage in tightly reasoned philosophical debates?

Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed when we learned that the Objectivist disciples of Ayn Rand had grave concerns about debating on the SL Communists land in the damage-enabled combat sim Jessie — threatening a Herald-sponsored debate between the Objectivists and Communists despite early positive signs.

Things started well enough. Sunday, I contacted the Premier of People’s Soviet Communist Party in Second Life – Supercool Sautereau – to suggest the debate. Comrade Sautereau readily agreed, and volunteered the Hall of the People’s Justice in Jessie sim as a potential venue. There were no Objectivists online at the time, but comrade Sautereau and some of his men accompanied me to the Objectivist base in Fleets Cove Beach sim.

After a few minutes of exploring the Objectivist Institute of Second Life and admiring the architecture, we were joined by a rank-and-file Objectivist – Galt Aeon – and an informal debate started shaping up:

SL Communists inspect Objectivist shrine to the dollar

Pixeleen Mistral: these guys are some communists from Jessie sim and I was hoping to have a philosophical debate about Communism vs. ObjectivismGalt Aeon: ok

Pixeleen Mistral: can you tell the rest of the Objectivists about this? I think it could be really coolGalt Aeon: it could be

Pixeleen Mistral: Supercool has a great hall for that sort of thingSupercool Sautereau: indeed, the hall of the people’s justice would be a nice venue.Spinnaz Dawg: Your group has quite a few members.Pixeleen Mistral: its right next to the SL Herald’s offices in JessieSpinnaz Dawg: It should turn it to be a nice debate. I hope so anyway.

Supercool Sautereau: yes. we will need to employ some comrades for security.Spinnaz Dawg: If I’m on, I’ll be willing to do that.Supercool Sautereau: very good.

Galt Aeon declined offers of free communist t-shirts

Galt Aeon: so lets see how you guys justify taking away people property and such for the “good” of the “other” people.Supercool Sautereau: property is theft. the earth is to be shared by all people equally.

Pixeleen Mistral: this is perfect – this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that SL needs more of – a debate about philosophical principles

Spinnaz Dawg: I personally wish that all country boundaries should be eradicated and we can all just live together.Supercool Sautereau: I agree to a degree comrade dawg. Globalization is making the world a borderless capitalist society that, left unchecked, will oppress us all.

Galt Aeon: property doa farm is not a natural resource. objects you own do not just come out of the groundSupercool Sautereau: I don’t get what you’re saying comrade aeon.

Galt Aeon: everything we have that is good is produced by men and they should have ownership of the means of production. not a state.Supercool Sautereau: you’re right comrade aeon!Supercool Sautereau: all people should own the means of production.Supercool Sautereau: then we can all be free of the capitalist yoke.Supercool Sautereau: the means of production should be collectively owned by all men and women.Pixeleen Mistral: should furries also own the means of production?

Galt Aeon: i think those that created such things should own their creationSupercool Sautereau: I’m glad we agree on this point.

Galt Aeon: not a monster called the people.Supercool Sautereau: a monster? have you no faith in your fellow man?Galt Aeon: yes the collective monster

Supercool Sautereau: it must be a wonderful life to live thinking of the people of the world as a monster to be shunned. rather than a group to be embraced and uplifted through organized advancement and collective society.Spinnaz Dawg: Do you find yourself to be part of this “monster,” Galt?Galt Aeon: why should i not profit from my creations or inventions?

Supercool Sautereau: all people should profit from all creations. we believe this, anyway.

Pixeleen Mistral: like open source software?Supercool Sautereau: not a bad comparison.Supercool Sautereau: to be modified by allSupercool Sautereau: to be shared by allSupercool Sautereau: to be enjoyed by allSupercool Sautereau: equally.

…and so on. Unfortunately, once the Objectivist leadership arrived in the person of Kain Scalia, the possibility of an official debate was diminished – Mr. Scalia has some concerns about getting enough press exposure and wanted assurances that multiple media outlets would cover any Objectivist/Communist events.

So the official event will have to wait for another day – hopefully we can get Adam Retuers to join us in Jessie for a real SL-style debate and settle once and for all who should own the tools of production in the virtual world.

the Soviet debating team is ready – and has push guns if things turn ugly

24 Responses to “The Great SL Objectivist vs. SL Communist Debate”

If only both sides could wake up with Bakunin knocking sense into them. What a wonderful world that would be!

Spinnaz Dawg

Feb 5th, 2008

For the record, the push guns were not intended for anything. We’re from a combat zone and so we traditionally have them on us. We’d have taken them off if they’d requested.

anon

Feb 5th, 2008

“FUCK YOU I GOT MINE” vs “STALIN WAS AWESOME”

ITD 14 year olds battle over two utterly retarded philosophies.

Apollo Case

Feb 5th, 2008

Kain’s right, the issue is not really worth debating, unless you want to keep flogging a dead horse.

StallionSeven

Feb 5th, 2008

Objectivism is not a serious philosophical movement. It’s original writings are badly reasoned and founded on shoddy interpretations of dime store Nietzsche. It is simply polemic that pretends to rationalism as a way to steal cred it can’t earn.

SqueezeOne Pow

Feb 5th, 2008

Right in the middle of what almost looked like a semi-valid debate you hear…

“Pixeleen Mistral: should furries also own the means of production?”

This is exactly why we should have LESS philisophical debate in SL.

!FURRIES DON’T FUCKING EXIST!

anon

Feb 5th, 2008

I believe Galt Aeon is d3adlyc0d3c, because both have the letter A in their name and both speak English. Also, Galt Aeon is an anagram of Oat Angel, and I think you know what that means! My evidence is irrefutable!

Supercool Sautereau

Feb 5th, 2008

In reality it should be an interesting debate, at least in theory. Our whole point is based in a largely collective society, and theirs is a society of near-total individualism. The sharp differences between those ideals for organizing a society, and the complete and total differences they entail, should be interesting to compare and contrast.

I would agree though, that questions like “should furries own the means of production too,” which don’t really mean much when furries are just people of a different avatar, shouldn’t be a part of it. But it really would be interesting, or at least I think so.

Sigmund Leominster

Feb 5th, 2008

Check the retro phrases: “means of production,” “the capitalist yoke,” and even “the means of production should be collectively owned.” It’s as if someone has just picked up a bargain paperback copy of “Das Kapital” from the freebie bin of a second-hand bookstore and copied some of the words highlighted in yellow!

And I suppose our “Voice of the People” would be happy if I walked off with his laptop, plugged into his cable modem, and borrowed his car to take me and my friends on a drunken road-trip. I bet not! “All property is theft” is the common weary bleat of the person who has nothing and wants to justify taking something without actually doing any…oh, wait, what’s the word?… oh yes, WORK.

The most sensible comment from the discussion – and I use the word “discussion” loosely – was “why should i not profit from my creations or inventions?” No reason, no reason at all.

Think it; make it; sell it. God bless Capitalism!

no one

Feb 5th, 2008

“It’s as if someone has just picked up a bargain paperback copy of “Das Kapital” from the freebie bin of a second-hand bookstore and copied some of the words highlighted in yellow!”

I’d be very surprised if Supercool has read Das Kapital, much less understood it. Perhaps the the Wikipedia article on communism. Maybe “Learn Fake Collectivism for Bourgeois Posers in 24 Hours”.

Supercool Sautereau

Feb 5th, 2008

“Learn Fake Collectivism for Bourgeois Posers in 24 Hours” is a good book, and reasonably priced too.

I meant “property” as in land, but if you want to take it to the most unreasonable extreme you can, feel free. Property to be shared by members of a society who will democratically decide what to do with it, before you ask whether I personally would allow you to have a drunken squatter campout on our own parcel after the drunken roadtrip.

Yay

Feb 5th, 2008

I personally dislike the idea of owning land, and I like the idea of all people being equal, so I agree with some parts of the communist philosophy. At least in theory it could create the perfect society. But in reality, humans are lazy and greedy. Whoever was in charge of distributing or regulating wealth/land/possesions would eventually abuse the power. Also, there will be less incentive to come up with newer, better, more effeciant ideas, because your reward is the same.

I look forward to reading the results of the debate.

Tzimitche Kondrad

Feb 6th, 2008

Yay:
Huh… it would create the perfect society. Except that EVERYTHING about it is contrary to human nature.

GREAT philosophy there.

Winter

Feb 6th, 2008

My sympathies tend further to the Communist side in this debate. If purely for the reason that they are snappier dressers.

Kit Casanove

Feb 6th, 2008

The principles of Marxism rest on limited resources – there is only so much planet to go round so how do we work out a way of sharing it equally between the creatures that populate it (here one might include flora, fauna and maybe even furries..). I advocate a ringfencing of all resources that are limited rather than the capitalist argument of ‘I got there first so it is mine’. This also applies to objects created, since their creation will use some of these limited resources and may well impact on other resources (e.g. the construction of a dam uses stone from land that people may already live on and causes flooding again on land on which others live – ref pretty much any dam built anywhere in the world). This is why capitalism is destroying the planet because there are not enough resources to fulfill the needs of every damn person seeking their fortune by taking resources and turning it into objects for sale. So, when we come to the virtual world, the problem of limited resources diminishes. My prediction is that eventually capitalism will exist solely in the virtual world because it cannot work on our limited planet. Either that, or we are screwed…

How does anyone take any of this seriously? Soviet-style communists on SL? You might as well have Soviet-style communists handing out free pens at a rented booth in the mall. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I can’t be the only one here that thinks this debate is assinine and our commie friends here are merely attention whores? Right…?

RoFLKOPTr

Feb 6th, 2008

Communism is the ideal system of government, but only in the ideal circumstances. If every man of any given community were to work equally as hard as the next man, and the leader of said community was a dead man, then communism would work perfectly. But, due to human nature, and the fact that no dead man will ever be elected, communism will never work. Sorry, but it’s just not going to happen. The harder-working men would be taken advantage of, and the living leader would be corrupted by the extreme amounts of power he automatically possesses. Just read through any non-biased history book, and you will notice that the above situation has played itself over and over again. The only communist society that has ever proven itself to work would be a commune. You know, one of those buildings in foresty areas with big murals on the side, old cars parked around them, no significant activity within a three mile radius, and severely reeking of cannabis and hippies? Yeah, those things… too bad there are only a few people out of a thousand that would subject themselves to such strange living arrangements.

Also, I would have to agree with SqueezeOne:

“Right in the middle of what almost looked like a semi-valid debate you hear… ‘Pixeleen Mistral: should furries also own the means of production?’ This is exactly why we should have LESS philisophical debate in SL. !FURRIES DON’T FUCKING EXIST!”

Pixeleen, if you would please examine the title which you imbued upon this article, you will notice that it clearly states “The Great SL Objectivist vs. SL Communist Debate”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe this debate was pertaining to the rights of humans vs the rights of furfags. Please lrn2journalism before you destroy the profession any further. Thank you.

When you bring your freakish furry fetish into some economic capitalist/socialist debate, you automatically lose, that’s the end of it, case closed. Any attempt by a furfag to argue with this is pointless as you’re just some degenerate cartoon-zoophile fetishist on the internet.

Furries are delusional to begin with, the majority of their fetish (don’t try to deny it’s a fetish) relies on them playing make-believe all day that they’re really a deformed animal, most likely one that wouldn’t even have the proper anatomy to speak in real life, or possibly even the mental capacity to, as crossing human intelligence with an animal’s would always produce something of sub-human intellect.

Furries are a joke, that’s it, no matter what kind of ideology they try to hide behind, they’re just something to be trolled and lol’d at. Something like that can’t be taken seriously in any real discussion, we’re better off asking a piss-covered gimp how to run our economy. Kit Casanove has the delusion that the entire world lives on 1′st world standards, “anon” is expressing blatant butthurt, and there was already a debate on capitalism vs socialism, it was called the cold war.

Also, secondlife is a game.

SqueezeOne Pow

Feb 6th, 2008

For the record, I’m not condoning or endorsing the above statements about furries…just that they don’t have rights because they don’t exist. They are humans playing as cartoon animals. Saying “what about hippie’s rights?” or “what about Mormon’s rights?” would be a much more valid question…but it would still be irrelevant and borderline stupid.

The recent string of communist/anti-Prokofy articles seem to be a rather transparent ploy to try to lure Prok back to SLH for the enjoyment of everyone that likes to mock her in the comments section. The timing is just to evident to be anything else.

Maybe people would be entertained if you guys took the effort to write more interesting articles. I know you guys work under the guise of satire but a) you’re not funny most of the time and (b) that’s generally what someone that is being critical does when they want to be shielded from any response. See Daily Show.

You guys don’t even have to start using actual facts or journalistic integrity. Just write something that’s entertaining and not just retarded!

none

Feb 9th, 2008

“Communism is like Spandex: great in theory, but when you put it to practice, things get ugly.”

MiddleGround

Feb 11th, 2008

Sooo…

On one side we have communism with many many MANY flaws.

On the other side we have capitalism… and well yeah I dont even have to mention the huge problems THAT causes.

I’d say both are as horrible, kick the commies as well as the objectivists out of SL. Furries and Prok as well while your at it.

Then perhaps we can actually have something interresting to read here for a change. But the chances of that happening are about as big as the chance that Phillip L. decides to embrace the Commie philosophy, ‘comrade’.

cavyboy

Jan 16th, 2009

I think that Second life needs to act as more of a socialist democracy; that is, when someone closes an account, any money they have left in the account will be distributed to the people, as long as the recipient has less money than the person whose account was closed. so if someone has L$23, and they close their account, 23 people who each have less than 23 dollars will each recieve one dollar. If the person has 6 friends, then the friends who have less than L$23 will get a dollar. then the rest of the money would go to the people.
Also, there should be checkboxes on the map that show stuff like rez-zones, no-fly zones, push-zones, damage land, pg zones and mature zones.
Oh yeah, and there should be more user polls.